Sara Whitney is an emerging artist creating oil paintings of remote landscapes. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the University of Victoria. Sara supports herself as a freelance graphic designer and assists with teaching art to children from preschool age to teens at Arts Umbrella on Granville Island. The body of work enclosed here has never been shown before. It represents five years of painting both in the studio and on-location. Sara has been adventuring in the wilderness for more than 25 years and loves how nature demands that one stay in the present and adapt to nature's whims. Sara feels this kind of hands on experience is critical to her landscapes, encouraging a more intimate integration with and knowing of her subject. It is with patience and a keen sensitivity that Sara explores the natural world. Thus these images speak deeply from the heart. Sara's life objective is to continue to develop both consciously and as a fine art painter.

Shows:

Sara's first Solo Show was held at the Silk Purse Gallery in West Vancouver, BC from February 28 to March 12, 2006. It was very well received!...with 110 Reception Attendees and 1334 Total Number of Vistors during exhibition. 11 paintings of the 23 shown were sold.

Publications:

Artist draws inspiration from remote possibilities Sara Whitney takes a walk on the wild side to create her paintings, MARK HUME writes GLOBE & MAIL Feb. 27, 2006 VANCOUVER -- Sara Whitney goes out there to get her art. Way out. She flies in float planes, paddles in canoes and uses hiking boots to go beyond where the last road stops. For her it is only when the pavement ends that the journey begins. She travels to some of the wildest, most remote places in British Columbia to paint vivid landscapes as evocative as anything by the Group of Seven. Although she's not afraid of mountain storms or of trekking through grizzly-bear habitat alone, her fear of art critics has kept her from exhibiting her work. Until now. At age 46, she will have her first show at a small gallery in West Vancouver tomorrow -- and it is stunning. Ms. Whitney graduated with a degree in fine arts from the University of Victoria 25 years ago. She works as a commercial artist, and does a variety of other jobs to pay the rent. But her passion for the wilderness always kept bringing her painting back to landscapes. The paintings, however, never left her small apartment. "I was afraid people would say, 'You know, we've seen this all before, it's just landscapes,' " she says, waving her hand like a dismissive critic. She has been forced into the public eye by a small circle of friends who felt her work was too good to be hidden away, and she is bracing herself for the response. "I'm think ready for it," she says, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm ready." On a map of B.C., the Vancouver-based artist marks the places she has visited to get the 22 images in her small but brilliant portfolio of original oils. "Spatsizi, Mount Edziza, the Nass Valley, the Chilcotin," she says, listing off some of the wildest places on the planet. Carrying a backpack that, at nearly 27 kilograms, would be heavy enough to make most men stagger, she wanders landscapes where wolves howl at night and grizzly bears leave footprints in the soft earth. She routinely stops while painting to see if a mountain lion is stalking her. Once she looked up to see a herd of caribou charging down from a glacier, snorting, lifting their heads, sending rocks flying. She was too scared to run. So she sang. "I started to sing opera," she says, shrugging in slight embarrassment. "Don't ask me why. I just sang whatever aria came to mind." It seemed to help. The caribou paused, stared in apparent disbelief, then faded into nothingness. Ms. Whitney's portrait of the Spatsizi Plateau shows a vast field of red and orange lichen against a backdrop of brooding mountains. And in the foreground, a single, white caribou antler rests on the ground, a ghostly reminder of her past encounter. "You can't stay there," she says, describing the Spatsizi. "It's unlivable. You can only visit and take away your memories." But memories fade. So Ms. Whitney saves them in daubs of oil. Painting in the field is a constant battle with the elements. Wind. Rain. Beating sun. Black flies that swarm into her eyes and stick in the wet paint. "I can only sit [at a painting] for three or four hours at a time. I'm either so frozen or bug-bitten after that I just have to quit. The weather pushes me out usually." In her backpack she carries two or three boards (she prefers painting on wood to canvas), 10 brushes and eight tubes of paint. The tubes are partially squeezed out to reduce the weight she carries. Many of Ms. Whitney's trips are shared with her partner, wilderness photographer Gary Fiegehen, but she often goes alone. "I try to do a three-day, two-night trip on my own, just to see if I've still got piss and vinegar," she says. For protection, she carries a can of bear spray. She often runs, following mountain trails, circling lakes, searching in a land of infinite possibilities for that one place waiting to be immortalized by her brushes. She can't just paint whatever she sees outside the tent flaps. "It doesn't present itself to you easily," she says. "It's like there's a place where you are meant to be . . . Sometimes it feels like the land is fighting me, it won't just give itself to me. Then I calm down. I get in tune [with nature] and that allows the land to be seen." What she sees is what Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson and other members of the Group of Seven once saw. The raw land. Canada's soul. Ms. Whitney's show, Call of the Wild, opens with a public reception tomorrow, from 6 to 8 p.m., at The Silk Purse, a West Vancouver gallery, 1570 Argyle Ave. It runs until March 12th. The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.